An Apple A Day Keeps The Doctor Away

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Most of Silicon Valley wants AI, flying cars, and to live forever. Does Apple want something different?

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Bedrooms are for two things.

Sleeping 7-8 hours a night, and reading seven minutes of a fantasy novel before I pass out.

Accomplishing both of these on a pretty frequent basis is the single most vital piece of my mental health.

A key way to make sure I accomplish them? By banning screens from the room. Specifically, phones. Specifically — in our homes, and probably yours — iPhones.

Which is ironic, because the company that makes them just announced they’re going to improve our collective mental health. Not just me. Not just you. Everybody.

And all it requires is checking in with your phone.

Some additional context: I’m extremely, historically privileged. Relatively to nearly everyone that’s ever lived I have an incredibly small number of things to be stressed, anxious, and/or depressed about.

I have a robust immune system and health care, I went to excellent public schools and college, I have worked for amazing people, my wife is wildly and deservedly successful AND an incredible partner and mom, I have seen and relied upon an excellent therapist for years, I have time to meditate, I am able to exercise — it’s absurd.

And yet I’m still up like clockwork at 2-ish AM most nights worrying about…everything?

Two weeks ago, Apple announced an integrated suite of improvements to their Health platform, coming in beta form this summer and for real this fall. Among those — a unified set of apps to help improve your mental health.

In particular:

• A journaling app

• A mood tracker

• A trend report, like the current ones in Health or Fitness you already ignore

• Standardized psychological questionnaires

To be clear, none of these things are new ideas. Apple very rarely introduces entirely new ideas or products, usually coming to the game fairly late and improving the user experience with vertically-integrated hardware and software.

Sometimes that means using unparalleled scale to crush the hopes and dreams of smaller companies that’ve been doing the thing for years now, or just buying those companies outright. Sometimes Apple’s version is less-good, sometimes it’s an upgrade, sometimes it’s not great and gets better along the way.

From Apple Maps to the Apple Watch to Apple TV to Pages to AirPods to password storage and Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and more, history is littered with Apple’s own take on a product, service, or category.

And now they’re coming for your mental health.

Should you be excited that the most powerful technology company that’s ever existed is trying to solve our mental health epidemic with an annual software update?

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